Children lead secret lives that adults can’t detect or that adults choose not to notice or sometimes both. It was years before my sons revealed that they had sampled a selection of insects in our yard after watching one of their Nature Channel heroes eat termites. Sometimes, though, parents are lucky enough to apply pressure of which they are unaware, forcing confessions they do not expect.

August marks the 20th anniversary of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. This bipartisan welfare reform legislation signed by President Bill Clinton on Aug. 22, 1996, dramatically transformed the nation’s welfare system, implementing strong welfare-to-work requirements and incentivizing states to transition welfare recipients into work.

The law, which created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and replaced the 61-year-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children, also implemented stricter food stamp regulations.

If you write about legislative races in Georgia, the last few elections have been downright boring: Republicans go into the November election holding a2-to-1 advantage in legislative seats over their Demo­cratic counterparts. Re­pub­licans come out of the election holding that same advantage.

There are very few legislative districts that are drawn to be really competitive. That scenario could change a little this year.

Shopping yard sales and estate sales runs in my family. We share a genetic anomaly that drives us to paw through other people’s heaps of horded clutter in search of hidden treasure. One begins to notice how the items homeowners spread across driveways and lawns and carports weave a particular tale about their lives. My mother will remark, “I can tell this is an interesting person.” She only wants to shop yard sales of interesting people.

Over the next several weeks, more than 1.7 million students will walk through the doors of Georgia’s public schools. Some of those students are kindergartners just starting their journey. Others are high school seniors almost ready to take the next step. They’ll be welcomed by more than 113,000 dedicated teachers.

I want to take a moment to personally welcome every one of our students and teachers back to school. I offer my best wishes to each of you for a safe, successful year of learning.

“A conservative is a statesman who is enamored with existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.”

– Ambrose Bierce

During the turbulent anti-war, anti-everything 70’s, I had a friend who worked for the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Though her organization normally enjoyed high esteem, at least in religious circles, she scanned the political landscape and came to a startling conclusion: “Every word in our title is now politically incorrect.”

I admit it. I’ve pulled the shades and watched The Bachelorette. I’ve jumped in the middle of the fray between two or three housewives, the O.C. and N.Y. being my favorites. These types of shows are shockingly entertaining at times, sort of like a building being demolished.

Why? I don’t actually know. I think there’s a little bit of voyeurism in most humans, and it makes us feel connected somehow to watch others struggling in their lives, too.